a little bit of this, a little bit of bat

At my job we have an intranet that has a social side; so I have been writing posts there every weekday; well, TBH, I have a weeks ahead queue of posts and as I come up with more ideas I write further into the future. On Tuesdays I have come into the habit of writing a Tuesday-Chooseday post where I list four pairs of like items or similar ideas and ask people to respond to indicate their preference. An example could be: prefer to awaken and start the day early or sleep in; prefer to swim in a natural body of water or a swimming pool; prefer INXS or Men at Work, or, prefer eating green grapes or red grapes.

Given my excessive writing there I have been remiss at posting here.

Having moved back to my parent's house to keep my dad company as my mom has been moved to a long term care home I now have a house to which I can come up with ideas that I could possibly implement - some examples of which I couldn't have done at all in my previous apartment.

One idea I had was to attempt to grow Giant Redwood Sequoia trees from seed and then guerilla plant them once they are saplings in a variety of places. These trees can live as long as 3000 years, so of course well past my remaining lifespan. I would monitor them and be curious to see how they progress over the remaining years of my life in their clandestine locations. I did tons of research about how to go about doing this and if it was appropriate for my climate zone (it is).

My latest idea, inspired by a few YouTubers I follow (Colin Furze and Tornado Dave and from a few years ago ModernSelfReliance) is to build a small (7'x7') underground bunker in the backyard in a surreptitious way, well, as secret as I would be able to receive a delivery of construction materials. With Chat GPTs help I have accumulated a lot of information; including about the W4x13 H steel beams that will be the roof of the bunker being supported by 4" 0.21" square steel tubular posts. Structural plywood (3/4") will be used for the walls attached to the exterior of the steel framing, FlexSeal or equivalent will be painting on the exterior of the plywood, then a radiant reflective barrier will be applied, and then finally 2" rigid foam insulation boards so as to keep the heat in that I explain below.

There would be floor cross beams that are planed down in such a way to create a path that any water inside the bunker could follow to a drain pit dug 3' deeper than the bunker for the purpose of allowing any excess water to flow into the surrounding ground. Atop the floor beams are floor boards and then 2" rigid foam insulation boards that conform to that flow channel; the insulation to help prevent cold from seeping from beneath the bunker into the floor. Atop the 2" rigid foam boards a circuit of 1/2 PEX that is buried in a thin layer of slope screed so as to continue the water slope to the pit. Atop the screed will be 3" square stone paving stones, the small size to allow for conformity to the water drain slope.

Connected to the 1/2 PEX sinewy circuit is a underfloor electric heating system that I really benefitted from ChatGPT to help me understand what was needed and what specific components would work well. From pipe end A that exits the floor will first be a T junction that has a valve on the T and a garden hose adapter, the purpose of this is to increase the pressure of water inside the system as initial setup. After that T junction is a 93W recirculating pump that can be powered down to 40W which produces about 5 gallons per minute (5GPM). After the pump is a pressure regulator reducer which can smooth out the pressure in the system and also drop the flow rate; for my purpose, to drop it to 0.5GPM. Next are a few sensors to measure the pressure, flowrate and temperature of the water in the system. Next is a 1440w mini tank heater - my initial plan had a tankless heater but the smallest tankless heater I found used 3000W which was too much for the power supply (a single household extension wire with a power bar at the end) so I will get a 4 gallon mini tank heater that with the 0.5GPM low flow rate ought to allow water to spend enough time in the heater to raise it in temperature. After the mini tank heater is a 2 gallon mini expansion tank - this is used to protect the life of the system and to accept any increase in pressure due to increase in temperature. Following the mini expansion tank is the highest point of the system where there will be a T junction with a valve and with a garden hose opening. To prime the system I will boil 15L of water and then add 2L of room temperature water and using a funnel pour that water through this opening at the top of the system. By being at the top it will fill all of the PEX circuit, the mini tank heater and all other nooks and crannies until it finally bubbles out the top. Once this prime load of hot water is added I will add an automatic air release valve. And then finally the PEX returns into the floor, nice and heated.

So to prime the system I put the hot water in through that top T junction opening until it is full; then, I attach a household garden hose with house pressure to the T junction at the bottom, before the pump and then open the water pressure to push more water into the system aiming for a system pressure of 13PSI at initial load. Once I reach that pressure I close the valve at that bottom T junction, disconnect the garden hose, so now the hydronic floor heating system is primed and pressurized.

I asked about the ideal temperature for the water to raise the bunker temperature to 25c and then what was the required temperature to maintain it. ChatGPT recommended 50c as a temperature to use to raise the bunker's room temperature and then to lower the mini heater's heating temperature gradually to see what the lowest value can be that still maintains the desired temperature. I would attach a thermostat that has a relay to control the pump, so once the thermostat reaches a desired temperature the pump would stop and the water inside the mini tank heater would be still and would warm up. At initialization I would use an air thermometer to see what the temperature is of the bunker air and I would set the thermostat to reach a temperature that 2c warmer than that to test it out and see how it works and see if there any leaks or adjustments that need to be made. Subsequent to that I would increase the thermostat temperature one or two degrees every other day or so until I have it reach my goal temperature.

The PEX running through the screed will conduct the heat through the screed to the stone tiles making the floor warm with enough BTU to warm the entire bunker. My goal is to be comfortable in shorts and T-shirt down there at any time of year. I will have an outdoor sofa, a nice TV, sound bar and DVD player so I can watch movies down there, I could also read or write while down there.

For ventilation I will have a long 4" tube whose bottom enters the bottom of the bunker on a wall that faces the already present garage with the top of that tube entering the garage. At the garage side of this ventilation tube will be a vent fan on a timer to blow garage air into the bunker for 12 of every 24 hours. The garage air is fine as it is an uninsulated out building with the garage door open frequently for fast voluminous exchanges of air, and with an EV being stored in it there are no toxic ICE car fumes to enter my bunker. As an exit vent I will have a 2" exit tube at the shaft entrance that ends up beneath a deck where it will have a U shape and mosquito net and chicken wire covering the enclosure. Having a 2" exit with a 4" vent fan blowing air in will create the positive air pressure that will help evacuate the bunker of radon.

There are even more in-the-weeds ideas and details to this plan that I have come up with, but for now I suppose this is enough.